The Big Tent

Protest against school desegregation (Little Rock, 1959), Photo by John Bledsoe of US News & World Report, Source Library of Congress (Donated to the public without restrictions)

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
– Evelyn Beatrice Hall, summarizing Voltaire’s view

“…[F]alse brethren… came in by stealth to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage…[But] we did not yield submission even for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you” (Galatians 2: 4-5).

America is a “big tent” nation. We welcome those from all backgrounds and all faiths, with all points of view.

The Founding Fathers felt so strongly about freedom of speech that they enshrined it in the First Amendment. But the right to express our political and religious views has limitations. Lawyers make a comfortable living litigating obscenity, slander and libel, copyright, and sedition cases.

That last is particularly relevant. Sedition is conduct which tends to subvert authority and/or incite insurrection whether by ethnic and racial hatred or other means.

For his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Sheikh Omar Abdel-Raman (“The Blind Sheikh”) was convicted of seditious conspiracy.

Now Kevin Alfred Strom [1] and Will Williams have announced plans to revive the white supremacist National Alliance. Before it went out of existence in 2013, the National Alliance was considered the best organized and best financed hate group in the United States by both the FBI and Southern Poverty Law Center.

As Americans and Christians, how should we respond? We cannot merely shake our heads and walk away. Certainly, we should pray. Certainly, we should act in accord with gospel principles of brotherhood and love of neighbor. That is not, however, enough to counter hatred.

We should speak out at private clubs and public meetings. We should voice our concerns to newspapers, websites, and elected representatives. We should donate, protest, join — even form — groups based on justice and equality, and create opportunities for those suffering from racial discrimination.

That is little enough to ask, in defense of this democracy of ours…and of our faith.
—
[1] Strom pled guilty to a charge of child pornography in 2008. Other charges were dropped.

Like this:

Related

Tell that to the Obama administration telling “the little sisters of the poor” I think they where called like that, that they should give under Obamacare contraceptives. Slowly I see America loosing it´s freedom. And I just gave one example, I can go on a rant about others.

I, too, fear where our country is going. It is sad when you are no longer feel free to speak the truth and stand up for things out of fear of being punished for doing so. This just tells everyone to sweep the issues under the rug.